George Brown College, French Cooking

I've alway enjoyed cooking, so just for fun, I took the professional chef's class at George Brown. The great thing about George Brown is the classes are 80% cute coeds...

George Brown was great, because it taught me the fundamental techniques, and the recipies of classical French cooking. However, I've never worked in a professional kitchen, nor do I want to; it's just a hobby. Recently, I've become interested in Asia cooking; kimchi, Korean Barbeque, hot pot, ramen, Shabu-shabu, miso soup...

Knives, the essential tool

Confident, precise cuts, by someone with excellent knife skills, always really impressed me. I was envious of those skills. Then one day I saw an advertisement by George Brown College, the famous cooking school in Toronto, offering a two day, hands on, class for knife skills. I took the class and loved it. So, I signed up for their Professional chief school.

If you are interested in knife skills there are some excellent Youtube tutorials. The most important knife to have is the chief's knife. You'll be using it for the rest of your life, so buy the best you can afford. Get advice first, there are important criteria and you can spend a lot of money on the wrong knife! You use the chief's Knife 95% of the time. A good paring knife is also useful. If you like fish, a filleting knife with a thin, flexible blade is very helpful. The fourth and final knife you need is a serrated bread knife; but a cheap dollar store knife will do!

Philly, with Cheese Whiz

Philly Cheese Sub for lunch: caramelized onion, thin-sliced fried beef covered with melted Cheese Whiz (I know the snobs will want provolone, but C-W is traditional, and I like it...).

Raman, Japanese

Made Japanese Ramen for lunch, with a runny boiled egg, noodles, Chinese black fungus, and tofu for toppings (just whatever I could find...) I forgot sliced green onions until after the photo. It was good, but needed more tare and some bold flavours. Next time I'll fry the Tofu. I tried to eat noodles with chopsticks; how do they do it???

Miso Soup, Japanese

Made Japanese miso soup for breakfast: dashi, miso paste, wakame seaweed and tofu. First, I made real dashi stock from kelp and bonito flakes. The stock was good, but tofu was rubbery and flavourless. Served in a traditional Japanese wooden bowl.

Beef Stock, homemade & canned

Ten pints of Beef stock. I pressure cooked to sterilize them in canning mason jars, so I can just leave them on a shelf. I've found a pint is an appropriate size for me, plastic screw top lids are available for leftovers.

Cooking truth

C'est tellement vrai!

Pulled Pork sandwich

I made pulled pork sandwiches for supper, topped with homemade barbeque sauce, coleslaw and caramelized onions.